I'm in the process of doing a rear brake job on my 88 bonne SSE and I wanted to throw this out for discussion.

I have the OEM service manual and there is no mention of left or right differences. The manual states they are self adjusting. All 4 shoes are identical and all the hardware is identicle between the drivers and passenger side. Doesn't seem to matter about a leading or following edge shoe. This car was purchased used. I thought this was odd because usually the left and right sides are mirror image to one another. I have not done many rr brake jobs but the few that I have done were always mirror imaged to one another. This kind of makes sense by the location of where the cable enters the backing plate. So if this is the case then one side will self adjust itself when going forward and the other side will self adjust itself when going rearward. I think both will self adjust when applying the parking brake. It seams as though my drivers side rear is always out of adjustment so I assume it'* the side that self adjusts when backing up. Seems like the drivers side is the side with noise issues all the time.
Eveything is in good working oder but it was just time for a rr brake job. Nothing was rusted or broken. I just expected to see the self adjusters to be different, one left hand thread and the other right hand thread. Not the case.

Any thoughts on this?

I think I'm good to go.

Rich.

Seems normal to me. My 89'* brakes were pretty much identical and had no special leading or trailing shoe. All of the rear brakes 87-99 are the same btw. Just a small tidbit.

I actually found the rear brakes quite confusing on my car for a few reasons...almost seemed like something was missing. But pretty easy to replace. I did my cylinders, lines, shoes, and drums.

You sound good to go.

Yes, all is well. I just finished a test drive and everything is fine. No surprises.